Almost Dead

by Lisa Jackson

  “Was it Marla? Did she knock off her mother-in-law?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “How did it happen?”

  “I don’t really know, Jannelle. Enough with the interrogation.” He heard his voice rise with impatience and made an effort to bring it back down. “It’s early. Slow down. For all I know, Eugenia could have fallen down the stairs. It doesn’t look that way, but who knows?”

  “I’ve already had a reporter call here. Can you believe it? I think the jerk knew you were Cissy’s husband, couldn’t find you in the book, and was calling anyone named Holt with a ‘J’ for the first initial. Jesus, I’m going to have to change that. You know, Dad probably got a call too. And J.J. Brace yourself. They’re bound to be as pissed as I am about it. Probably worse.”

  “I’m braced.” Jack wedged the phone between his shoulder and ear. He was already rooting around in a cupboard for a cup, came up with a mug from his days at UCLA, and pulled the pot out of the coffee machine before it was ready.

  “So this guy didn’t call you?”

  “Not yet. But our house…Cissy’s place is unlisted. I don’t have a phone at the apartment. Just use the cell.”

  “They’ll track you down.”

  Of that much, he was certain. He poured himself a cup while some of the black brew drizzled from the reservoir and through the filter onto the hot plate, where it sizzled. Quickly, he returned the carafe to the coffee machine and listened as Jannelle barraged him with more questions. Rapid-fire, she demanded:

  “When did it happen?

  “How?

  “Who would have done this?”

  A bit of conscience hit her, and she asked, “Jesus, how is Cissy? You’ve talked to her, right? You…Oh God, that’s why you’re whispering! You’re with her, aren’t you? Oh, Jack, no!” He heard her take another long drag. “Didn’t I tell you to divorce the bitch and be done with it?”

  Jack wasn’t in the mood. “What is it you want, Jannelle?” he asked coldly.

  “Answers.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I want to know what to say if the damned media calls again.”

  “Whatever happened to your stance that ‘no publicity is bad publicity’?”

  “Maybe that was a little broad. I’m rethinking it,” she said from her condo in Sausalito.

  “Try ‘No comment.’ Look, I’ve got to run, I’ll talk to you later.” Before she could say another word, he hung up and took another long gulp from his coffee. What was it with Jannelle? Naturally bossy, she was forever sticking her nose into his business.

  But then, his whole family had a tendency to get under his skin. All opinionated; no one could ever keep his or her mouth shut. And they’d all chimed in on his separation from Cissy. Jannelle, divorced twice herself, had never liked Cissy and was rooting for the split to be finalized. When he’d given Jannelle the news, she’d arched a perfectly plucked eyebrow, crossed her incredibly long legs, leaned back in her chair in the Italian restaurant on Pier 39, and smiled. Outside, a colony of sea lions lazed on the docks in the cool wintry sun. Inside, Jannelle ordered two glasses of champagne and said, “Let’s toast to your new freedom. I’ve always said you should divorce the bitch.”

  Jack had walked out, leaving her with the two flutes of expensive champagne and the bill. He’d wandered aimlessly along the waterfront, smelling the brine of the sea and wending his way through tourists willing to brave the sunny, if windy, day.

  Things had gone differently with his father. Jonathan Holt had been saddened when he’d heard of the potential demise of Jack’s marriage. He’d met Jack in an Irish bar not far from Jack’s office in the financial district. “I hope you find a way to bury the hatchet and patch things up,” he’d said, sipping a Guinness and glancing at the long mirror that stretched behind the bar. They had been standing, each with a foot on the brass rail, an array of colorful bottles and clean glasses stacked on glass shelves in front of the mirror. “There’s a child involved, you know. My grandson.”

  “I know that, Dad. B.J. isn’t just your grandkid, he’s my son.” The old man always had a way of turning the center of the conversation to himself. And Jonathan Holt was no expert on marriage. Though he and Jack’s mother had endured nearly forty years of being together, throughout the duration of the union, Jonathan—handsome, fit, and charming—had found it difficult to stay faithful to his wife. In the end, Jill Holt had become weary of turning the other cheek, looking the other way, and pretending not to hear the whispers, while younger women openly flirted with her husband. She didn’t divorce him, just moved into a bedroom on the far side of their house, as far from her husband as possible without actually taking the step of “separation.” In Jack’s estimation, Jonathan Holt was the last one to be giving advice on the sanctity of marriage vows.

  Jack hadn’t had to face his older brother, Jon, who went by the moniker Jonathan Junior and sometimes was referred to as J.J. Once a major surfer and now “doing time” as he called it as a philosophy professor at a small college in Santa Rosa, Jon often dated coeds and had always been a believer in the old hippy axiom of “doing your own thing.” When Jack had delivered the news of his separation from Cissy to his older brother over the phone, J.J. had barely reacted. “Hey, man, it’s your life. Mom and Dad made a mess of theirs hanging together for so long. If we learned anything from them, it’s you should get out of a bad marriage while you can. I did. It’s no big deal.”

  No big deal. J.J.’s words still haunted Jack, ringing in his ears as he stood by the French doors and looked outside to the predawn morning. He noticed his watery reflection in the glass, seeming ghostlike. J.J. had been wrong. This, the breakup of his marriage, was the biggest deal of his whole damned life. And his marriage wasn’t “bad”; it just needed some work. Maybe he needed some work. He was the one who’d messed up.

  Closing his eyes for a second, Jack could almost hear his mother’s voice, as if she were in the room standing next to him instead of dead and buried, having succumbed to liver cancer two months before B.J. was born. Of course, if Jill Holt had been alive, she would have wrung out the old “’til death do us part” line, not that it mattered much.

  The divorce had been Cissy’s idea.

  He heard the sound of little dog paws and then footsteps on the stairs. In the wavy reflection, he spied his wife walking into the room. She was carrying a tousle-headed B.J. in her arms.

  “’Morning,” Jack greeted her.

  “I thought one of the terms of our deal was that you’d be gone in the morning.”

  “Still haven’t worked on the furnace.”

  To his surprise, she didn’t argue. Still in pajamas and bare feet, her sun-streaked hair a mess, no makeup visible while hauling a groggy and seemingly grumpy child into the kitchen, she was still beautiful.

  “Hey, big guy,” Jack said as Cissy handed her son off to him. “How’re ya?”

  Beej, usually ecstatic to see him, turned his face away and grumbled, “No!”

  “What’s this all about?” Jack asked him with a frown.

  “No, Dad-dee!” B.J. was emphatic.

  Cissy glanced over her shoulder on the way to the coffeepot. “Welcome to my world. This has been his disposition most of the week. I think he’s teething again. He hasn’t got a fever or anything. Just a bad mood.” She poured herself a cup and rested her hips against the counter as she blew across the top of the steaming cup. “You made this?”

  “Yeah?”

  “The single life must be agreeing with you already. Look what you’re learning.”

  “I’ll let you in on a little secret. I knew how to make coffee before I met you.”

  “Never made a pot while you were living with me.”

  “You’re the earlier riser.”

  She hid a smile behind the rim of her cup. “And how was that couch?”

  “Slept like a baby.”

  “Up every three hours crying?” she asked as Beej, a limp rag, his head tucked i
n the crook of Jack’s neck, looked up at his father and scowled.

  “No, Dad-dee!”

  Cissy shook her head as she started making Beej some oatmeal.

  “Maybe he just needs breakfast,” Jack suggested, trying to jolly his son out of his grumpy mood by lifting him high overhead and swinging him, but B.J. wasn’t having any of it and began wailing as if in pain.

  “I see Daddy’s missing the magic touch too,” Cissy said as she turned her attention to B.J. “We’ll have breakfast, then go upstairs and have a real bath, as last night you ended up with only a lick and a promise, and we’ll change and…” Her voice had lifted an octave as she spoke to her son, smiling at him and wrinkling her nose, but he turned away from her as well.

  “Apparently Mom’s got an equally magic touch,” Jack observed.

  “At least this morning,” she said, adding, “Coco needs to go out, and the furnace is still blowing cold air.”

  “I’m on it.” He drained his cup, then opened the door to the backyard. The sun hadn’t yet risen, but at least the rain had stopped, leaving the air thick and damp. “Come on,” he said to the little white dog.

  Coco stood as if planted on the hardwood floor under the table. “Come on, Coco, let’s do your thing.”

  The stubborn animal wouldn’t budge.

  “Oh, for crying out loud!” Cissy said, unable to keep a tinge of amusement out of her voice. “Come on, Coco.” Carrying the toddler, Cissy walked outside, and the stupid little dog happily followed. Over her shoulder, Cissy called to Jack, “You could have picked her up, you know.”

  “And risk being bit?” he asked, following her.

  “Wimp!” she said but laughed as Coco started sniffing the wet grass.

  The house phone rang. Still holding Beej, Cissy headed back inside to answer it. “Hello…Yes, this is she…. No, I haven’t heard from her,” she said, her voice edged with irritation. I don’t expect to…. What? Look, I have no idea, okay, none! That’s all I have to say on the matter. Don’t call back!” Cissy slammed the phone down so hard that outside Coco jumped and looked up from her close examination of a clump of crabgrass.

  Jack could hear Cissy grumbling under her breath as she walked into the living room. It sounded as if someone had asked her about Marla. He grimaced, imagining what might come next, how many reporters and snoops and gossips would keep bothering her. Wishing he could stave off the flood and help, he let the dog back inside.

  Well, there was one thing he could do.

  The furnace, a giant rumbling monolith, was in the basement, down steep, switchbacking steps through a door just off the kitchen. Jack found a flashlight in a junk drawer in the kitchen, then headed downstairs and past the laundry area to the ancient heater. It looked like a giant octopus with huge tentacles rising to the ceiling and the rooms above. Its replacement had been next on the to-do list, but, of course, that was before all hell had broken loose and his marriage had crumbled. No, that was wrong. It hadn’t completely died, he reminded himself, though Cissy acted as if the marriage were on its last gasps and there was no hope of resuscitation.

  Jack wasn’t about to give up.

  He spent half an hour with the damned furnace, figured out that it wasn’t cycling on and that the element was probably kaput. The ducts were fine, might need to be cleaned, but it was the furnace itself that needed replacing. Not a surprise.

  He found a towel in the dirty-clothes basket positioned near the washer. Wiping his hands, he climbed the stairs and reentered the living room, where Cissy, having already folded the sleeping bag, was sitting on a corner of the couch, Beej on her lap playing with a toy bunny.

  “It’s shot,” he said.

  “Your professional opinion?”

  “Yep.”

  Cissy sighed. “I’ll call some places this morning. Get a few bids.”

  Jack noticed the time on the clock in the living room. No matter what he did, he’d be late for work, and he couldn’t bag out. He had a meeting at ten with reps from a major hotel downtown. The hotel reps wanted a feature, and since the unique hotel was a major advertiser, Jack was ready to discuss it. He would have loved to run upstairs and shower, but that was impossible. Cissy had thrown every last stitch of his clothes on the driveway the morning after he’d spent the night at Larissa’s. There wasn’t so much as a sports jacket in his side of the closet any longer.

  There were no two ways about it, he’d have to stop by his apartment to shower and change before driving to the office. “Gotta run,” he said reluctantly. “Do you want me to take you up to your grandmother’s house to pick up the car?”

  “Oh.” She glanced at the clock mounted over the mantel. “No, I’ll call a cab once Tanya gets here.” Her lips tightened just a bit when she mentioned the nanny’s name, the nanny Jack had found for their son, a woman of twenty-eight whom, for some reason, Cissy didn’t quite trust despite Tanya’s stellar list of recommendations.

  “Are you sure? I’m not crazy about you going back there alone.” He was giving her an out, even though he didn’t have much time.

  “I’ll be fine. Go on. You’ll be late.”

  He hesitated.

  “Jack, go. You were supposed to be out of here before I got up, remember?”

  No use arguing. Especially when she was right. “Okay, I’ll talk to you later, but if you change your mind and want some moral support, I’ll come back and take you.”

  “Moral support?” she said meaningfully.

  “Give it a rest, will ya? I’m trying to help out.”

  She started to come back with a hot retort, but instead she backed down and nodded. “Okay. You’re right. We both know where we stand.”

  “Good.” He could barely believe it. She’d been so adamant, so prickly. As he passed by the couch, he ruffled B.J.’s hair and pressed a quick kiss to Cissy’s crown, surprising her.

  “That’s not winning you any points, Holt,” she said, but she climbed to her feet and, still carrying Beej, walked him to the door.

  “I’ll be back after work.”

  “No, wait, you don’t have to—”

  She didn’t finish her thought, and he took that as a good sign. As he jogged to the car, he felt her gaze on his back. When he reached the Jeep, he looked over his shoulder and saw Cissy standing on the porch in her bare feet holding the baby. Next door, Sara Delano, their neighbor, dressed to the nines, was picking up her soggy newspaper from the bushes near her front porch.

  “Jack!” Sara said, waving and offering him a smile that was too wide for so early in the morning.

  He waved as he hit the button on his remote lock. “Hey, Sara!” As he climbed into the Jeep, he saw that Sara, in long skirt, boots, sweater, scarf, and jacket, was picking her way across the adjoining lawns to the porch where Cissy stood. Good. He hated to leave Cissy alone even though she’d made damned sure he knew that she liked it that way.

  Not that he really believed it. He glanced over his shoulder as he eased from his parking space and caught a picture of Cissy, ponytail blowing over her shoulder in the breeze as she clutched their kid. She was staring after his Jeep, her angry facade slipping, her expression pensive.

  He grinned to himself.

  Damn, if she didn’t look like she missed him already.

  Cissy watched Jack pull away. From the corner of her eye she’d witnessed the quick exchange between Sara and him, then observed Sara’s eyes follow Jack’s movements.

  So what?

  They were all friends.

  Sara and Jack had been close, no big deal.

  It was nothing. Meant nothing!

  And yet a ridiculous spurt of suspicion stole through her. She couldn’t help but wonder if Jack and Sara had ever had a fling.

  Like Larissa.

  Don’t be stupid, she instantly chastised herself. Sara’s your friend.

  But it happened all the time, didn’t it? The wife was always the last to know. How many times had Sara commented on how “hot” Jack was? How man
y times had he tried to set her up with one of his friends, always saying that Sara was a catch? Before finding him with Larissa, Cissy would never have thought for a second that there was anything between her husband and their neighbor, but now…

  Cissy gave herself a mental shake. So the looks Jack and Sara had exchanged once in a while seemed more than just friendly. Who cared?

  She would not—absolutely would not—become one of those suspicious women she detested. What was wrong with her? If she couldn’t trust Jack, she certainly could trust Sara.

  You’re over the edge because of last night and Eugenia’s death. That’s it. And because Marla is on the loose. She shivered at that thought and held her son closer as she thought about someone watching the house the night before. Had that been her imagination?

  “Hey,” Sara called, holding a dripping newspaper away from her rust-colored jacket as she crossed the damp grass that separated their two houses. A redhead with porcelain skin and big eyes that flashed a deep forest green, Sara had been a model in high school and now was a high-powered realtor. She’d been married and divorced twice and now swore that she would remain single at least until she was thirty-five, which was still two years away. “I heard about your grandmother,” she said, tossing her hair out of her eyes as the newspaper dripped from one hand. “What a bummer. I’m so sorry.”

  “So am I,” Cissy admitted as a gust pushed a few wet leaves across the grass and she turned her back to the wind. “It’s a shock.”

  “Hang in there.” Sara came to the porch and trained her gaze on B.J. “Hey, there,” she cooed. Sara, who didn’t have any of her own kids, winked at Beej. The boy pulled his shy act, burrowing his face into his mom’s neck. “See that, it’s the effect I have on all men.”

  Cissy doubted it. In fact, she knew better.

  “God, Beej looks more like his dad every day.”

  That much was true. Which wasn’t so horrible, Cissy supposed. Jack definitely was good-looking, which sometimes could be more of a curse than a blessing.